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    Factorio Weekly Question Thread

    November 12, 2019

    Factorio Weekly Question Thread

    Weekly Question Thread

    Posted: 11 Nov 2019 10:04 AM PST

    Ask any questions you might have.

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    submitted by /u/AutoModerator
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    This is painful to watch...

    Posted: 12 Nov 2019 01:43 AM PST

    6800 people watching GiantWaffle automate smelting

    Posted: 11 Nov 2019 10:52 AM PST

    Trains are so fun, Thank you factorio print contributors for making this game great

    Posted: 11 Nov 2019 06:08 PM PST

    Dev Team, Please Let us Flip The Chemical Plant Inputs!

    Posted: 12 Nov 2019 07:10 AM PST

    UPS Wars 3 - Results

    Posted: 11 Nov 2019 09:22 PM PST

    UPS Wars 3 - Results

    UPS Wars 3 - Electronic circuits is over.

    There were many great ideas submitted, and I encourage you to check them out on the forum thread.

    The winning entry (download) was a collaboration between /u/Stevetrov & /u/DaveMcW, with a benchmark of 39497 ms.

    The winning strategy was to build electronic circuits on top of the copper patch, using direct insertion everywhere.

    Electronic circuits built on top of copper

    The best entries in the other categories were:

    Trains only

    39497 ms - /u/Stevetrov & /u/DaveMcW (download)

    40822 ms - /u/Stevetrov (download)

    Belts only

    50828 ms - /u/Stevetrov (download)

    51754 ms - AssemblyStorm (download)

    Off patch smelting

    66223 ms - /u/Stevetrov (download)

    70821 ms - flame_Sla (download)

    Thanks to everyone who participated!

    submitted by /u/DaveMcW
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    A humble 2x8 Nuclear Power Station, my biggest set up so far. but I'm still considering adding more reactors.

    Posted: 11 Nov 2019 10:18 PM PST

    My friend got mad at the amount of spaghetti I used, but he couldn't argue with the results

    Posted: 11 Nov 2019 09:08 PM PST

    Solar energy was not as efficient, as I thought... So I built this

    Posted: 12 Nov 2019 07:36 AM PST

    I've finally found some QOL mods that really keep me engaged. I don't think I've ever made this much progress on a base

    Posted: 11 Nov 2019 08:29 PM PST

    They are using some new tactics that I don't fully understand yet (Rampant AI)

    Posted: 11 Nov 2019 10:29 AM PST

    Grid Bases, Schmid Bases (rate my intersection)

    Posted: 11 Nov 2019 10:30 AM PST

    Efficiency modules are not as bad as you might think!

    Posted: 11 Nov 2019 02:36 PM PST

    Efficiency modules are not as bad as you might think!

    This is related to my latest work, which is trying to build the most "efficient" base using all technologies available in vanilla. I mainly focus on three parameters:

    1. Minimizing total energy consumption per unit product;
    2. Minimizing total pollution emissions per unit product;
    3. Minimizing total resource cost per unit product (maximizing "productivity").

    It is difficult to quantify 1 and 2 per unit product, so I generally rewrite them into a different form. These are much nicer to play with because they involve units that we are familiar with:

    1. Minimizing energy consumption rate per production rate (watts / crafting speed);
    2. Minimizing pollution rate per production rate (pollution/min / crafting speed).

    I don't care about construction cost or footprint; with a few exceptions, most factory buildings are not space-limited and do not need to be rebuilt once constructed. Also assume that I am using tier 3 modules, as they are better than the others at minimizing the given formulas in most scenarios.

    ​

    Everyone here seems to think that efficiencies are underpowered and useless in a lot of scenarios, and a lot of the hate seems to originate from this thread, as I have seen it linked everywhere and even referenced in the wiki. This doesn't satisfy me; It doesn't seem like he gave efficiencies much of a chance.

    Let's consider a single tier 3 assembler, similar to the original post, with 3 productivity modules. Based on formulas 1 and 2, what is the best module to put in the last slot?

    • With a speed module, the power/speed ratio is 1550kW / (1.3125 items/s * 1.3) = 902.24 and pollution is (10.66*60)/s / (1.3125 items/s * 1.3) = 374.86.
    • With an efficiency module, power/speed = 1100kW / (0.6875 items/s * 1.3) = 1230.8 and pollution is (7.54*60)/s / (0.6875 items/s * 1.3) = 506.18.

    In this case, it is certainly true that speed is better than efficiency, but that doesn't seem to scale up when we add beacons. When the post author did so, his assumption was to surround the machine with beacons to amplify the effect, but that's not the best way to do it. He correctly stated that the efficiency gain is outweighed by the cost of powering the beacon, but that's only true when the beacon services a single machine.

    To maximize the effect of efficiency, it is better to surround the beacon itself with machines (up to 12 might be feasible with assemblers and bots, though a straight-line layout that can service 8 assemblers via belts is also an option to increase the number of beacons per assembler:

    Beacon surrounded by assemblers in two configurations.

    In this case, we can consider the power draw of the beacon to be "shared" by the assemblers around it, down to 40kW per beacon per assembler in the surrounded layout, and 60kW per beacon per assembler in the linear layout with the advantage of being able to use more beacons!

    Now in this case, the efficiency module's effect is much more substantial. Assuming there is enough excess power draw from other modules, each beacon that provides 2 efficiency modules will amount to a 100% decrease in power draw per assembler, an equivalent of 388 kW per assembler per beacon. In the linear setup, this results in a net difference of 60-388 = -328 kW per assembler per beacon!

    To compare this against using speed modules, I set up a small test. I made two sets of tier 3 assemblers, boosted by the maximum number of beacons in the linear layout. In one set, the beacons were efficiency; in the other set they were filled with speed. Each set had 5 assemblers with 0-4 productivity modules and the rest of the slots filled in with the respective beacon module. Here are the results:

    # Prod 4 3 2 1 0
    # Eff / Speed 8 9 10 11 12
    Crafting Speed (Eff) 0.7/s 0.8938/s 1.05/s 1.169/s 1.25/s
    Crafting Speed (Speed) 4.2/s 4.956/s 5.55/s 5.98/s 6.25/s
    Power (Eff) 1078kW 590kW 327.5kW 327.5kW 327.5kW
    Power (Speed) 2880kW 2840kW 2800kW 2760kW 2630kW
    Pollution (Eff) 0.1027/s 0.039/s 0.008/s 0.0073/s 0.0066/s
    Pollution (Speed) 0.327/s 0.299/s 0.272/s 0.246/s 0.22/s
    Power / CS (Eff) 1540kJ 660.1kJ 311.9kJ 280.2kJ 262kJ
    Power / CS (Speed) 685kJ 573kJ 504.5kJ 461.5kJ 420.8kJ
    Pollution / CS (Eff) 0.1467 0.0436 0.0076 0.0062 0.0053
    Pollution / CS (Speed) 0.0778 0.0603 0.0491 0.0411 0.0352

    Note that crafting speed also includes productivity, as it does affect the overall output rate of the machine, and power includes the machine's share of the beacons' power draw (4 beacons*60kW per machine per beacon).

    I'll be honest, these weren't quite the results I expected. I had hoped that it would be a much greater difference, but it still shows how competitive efficiency is.

    Overall, whether to use efficiency or speed depends on how "productive" you make your factory - with more productivity modules (the maximum of 4), using speed does perform better but with higher pollution and power costs than less productive factories. With 3 productivity modules, efficiency uses more energy and speed creates more pollution. Finally, anything below 3 productivity modules should probably use efficiency, though it hits the 20% power cap at 2 productivity modules.

    Based on the discussion I've read, it seems reasonable to max out on productivity modules, since you end up using less resources from upstream and the factories can then be smaller and cost less in production. So tl;dr if you don't really care, just keep using 4xprod and speed beacons.

    submitted by /u/ninja_tokumei
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    Circuit for PRNG and square root needed

    Posted: 12 Nov 2019 06:48 AM PST

    Hello together.

    I've been enjoying the game and this sub for quite some time now and am currently working on my first big project in factorio.

    I don't want to spoil the project yet, so I'll get right to where I need help with it.

    I would say I have a good understanding of the circuit network but I'm currently struggling with two subsystems that I need for my project.

    I need two logic circuits:

    The first is a pseudo random number generator. It will be triggered by setting a signal (for example C) to 1. The circuit must then output a random number in a set range (for example 1-100/0-99). The upper limit of the range must be customizable, but not dynamic (Can be "hard coded" as part of the circuit). The PRNG must output a new random number each time it is triggered. Also each placed PRNG must output another random number when triggered for the first time. Two static signals (X and Y) are available to seed it. The combinations of X and Y are unique for every PRNG, but each signal by itself is not unique.

    The Circuit should not rely on timing as it's only source of entropy, as the output might directly influence the next time it is triggered.

    Also the PRNG must not use any inventories as it gets placed from a blueprint and it would be extremely difficult to provide specific items/amounts.

    The second circuit is rather simple compared to the PRNG:

    It needs to calculate an approximated squre root of a single input signal (for example S). The output may be inaccurate up to 10%. So when the input signal is 10000 a result from 90-110 is acceptable, but 89 or 111 are not.

    For both circuits it is preferred to use as few parts as possible (though I prefer a slightly larger circuit over one that's more difficult to understand). Speed is not really important, though I prefer them to take less than 60 Ticks. (Also I don't want to use any mods to achieve this functionality.)

    I hope someone here can help me with this or guide me in the right direction.

    (Also sorry for my english, I'm not a native speaker)

    submitted by /u/M1k3y_11
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    Mildly over-engineered 2kspm Red Science

    Posted: 11 Nov 2019 01:37 PM PST

    My Uranium fuel cell farm

    Posted: 12 Nov 2019 07:47 AM PST

    We will purge the filthy Xenos with the God Emperors Holy Flame

    Posted: 11 Nov 2019 11:42 AM PST

    How do you split off the main bus with more than 4 belts ?

    Posted: 12 Nov 2019 05:43 AM PST

    I got a base with 8 Belts of copper ( 2 packs of four wide of course ) . I always split off the top belt but I don't know how to balance it properly , the bottom four belts don't get used . Do I put multiple splitters one after another ? And what's with splitter priority ?

    submitted by /u/Royal_Vengeance
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    Has anyone ever actually used up a uranium patch?

    Posted: 11 Nov 2019 01:06 PM PST

    The first patch I tapped was 7.4 million units of uranium.

    I have kovoraxed it, gotten my reactors up, accumulated a stockpile of thousands of u-235, and been running my base off of it for dozens of hours.

    And the patch still has... 7.4 million units of uranium left.

    submitted by /u/NameLips
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    Some good ratios to keep in mind

    Posted: 11 Nov 2019 09:23 AM PST

    1 green circuit assembler for every 6 red circuit assembler

    1 red circuit assembler and 1 green circuit assembler for 1 blue circuit assembler

    1 robot frame assembler, 3 low-density structure assemblers, and 1 blue circuit assembler for 1 yellow science assembler

    5 electric accumulators for every 6 solar panels

    submitted by /u/lolimsosmart
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    Beaconing my base part 3: Red Circuits!

    Posted: 11 Nov 2019 12:59 PM PST

    Has anyone managed to play multiplayer without the port forward?

    Posted: 12 Nov 2019 03:01 AM PST

    Hello,

    Two friends and I all have factorio on steam, none of us can open ports because of various reasons. We tried to play multiplayer (also with the steam 'join' feature), but could not join each others sessions.

    So has anyone made it work without the port forward?

    And if not, are there maybe plans from the devs to make that happen in the future?

    I know a few games that manage it with no problem whatsoever, so I imagine it should be feasable.

    submitted by /u/Headnut57
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    Need a suggestion to increase difficulty

    Posted: 11 Nov 2019 10:04 PM PST

    Good afternoon. My brother and I are getting ready to start our annual Factorio play through and I'm getting hyped for it as usual. However... I'm looking to make it harder than normal.

    Typically we play an Angels/Bob's/SpaceX Railworld, we've also played Marathon games, and then an assortment of other mods including Rampant, and Evolution for biter difficulty. We added Py's mods, but they clash with Angel's and Bob's obviously. We've done Seablock as well. Now we haven't played to deeply into Py's because we are partial to Angel's and Bob's playthroughs, so we would prefer to stay with those. However if there is a Py's suggestion coupled with a few other mods to add more to it, we would be willing to make a full switch.

    I really want to make this years playthrough a brutal one. I want to get a good list together here shortly because I usually choose the mods, and I'm excited to try .17 because the last we played may have actually been .15 due to some deployments I had then a PCS, and the UI change looks amazing, and the mod loader looks amazing, and the changes look super dope so the excitement is building.

    Thanks for any help or suggestions you guys can offer I can't wait to scratch this itch.

    submitted by /u/Soerinth
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